My Nest learning thermostat arrived this afternoon. When I arrived home I began the installation process, which took about 10 minutes. Once Nest was installed, I connected it to our wireless network, updated the unit’s software, inputted our zip code, and named the Nest (I chose the rather imaginative, “Hallway”), and set it on its path of learning our heating and energy usage patterns. My initial reaction is quite positive. A full review in another month or two, but for now I’ll share this video about its learning capabilities & features:

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10 Comments on Nest learning thermostat update

I watched the video and found it funny that near the end it says you have to manually switch to cooling in the summer. Is that true? I have a thermostat that I consider average yet it doesn’t require me to switch from heating and cooling as the seasons change.

The Nest is designed to save energy, the convenience of Auto Cool/Heat will be less efficient.

For example, during the spring and fall months it’s not unusual to have cool mornings and warm afternoons. A thermostat in automatic mode would keep the house warm in the morning (70 Degrees) and quickly start to air condition in the mid afternoon, removing all the heat you put in during the morning cycle.

The best operation is to have the Thermostat set on cooling and let the cool mornings coast at a lower temperature and you may not need any cooling in the afternoon.

To correct my earlier comment, you CAN program both heating and cooling to occur during a single schedule. Nest refers to this as a “Range Schedule;” from the Nest site:

When you set a Range Schedule, you can program both heating and cooling temperatures for any given setpoint. Range Schedules can’t be learned, only programed. When using a Range Schedule, you’ll need to pause learning, then program the temperatures you want directly in the schedule on Nest’s display or on the Nest Account.

After a month with Nest, I’m very impressed with the device. It definitely encourages and facilitates energy saving behavior, and its learning mode is remarkable. I’ll wait about six months before writing a full review.

I got my Nest today, it’s a beautiful piece of engineering. You can see the roots of Apple in this product, right down to the packaging. Piece of cake to install, in fact it took me longer to remove my old thermostat (a z-wave one) that it took to install this one. Setup was a breeze as well. It did seem to take a couple of hours for the temperature to settle – it initially thought it was 77 in the house, when it was really 72, but, that’s all set now.
Extra cool factor – when you walk up to it & it sense you, the display turns on.

Several months in, LOVE the thing. Neat factor: senses when you’re away, and turns the temp down (or up, depending upon season). iPhone app lets me adjust the temp remotely – anywhere in the world! Should do a full review at some point…..

Well – so much for the Android App, not sure what happened (I may have updated it?) but – not it Force Closes whenever I tried to change the temperature. Since that’s all the App does, it has become useless, and, their webpage does not work from teh Android either. It may be going back to them now.